Garth Brooks Gets a Rope Around Prime-Time TV : Pop music: Industry insiders attribute the country singer’s sales surge to his recent TV special.

With a boost from his recent network TV special “This Is Garth Brooks,” the country singer is back on top of the pop charts--a dramatic development that has intensified interest in prime-time television as a powerful pop marketing device.

Brooks’ latest album, “Ropin’ the Wind”--which was the biggest selling album of 1991, sold about 168,000 copies last week and will again be No. 1 when Billboard magazine publishes its weekly rankings on Saturday.

But that’s not all.

The singer’s other two albums--1990’s “No Fences” and 1989’s “Garth Brooks”--will also move up dramatically, two places to No. 3 and 10 places to No. 13, respectively.

Together, the albums sold an estimated 339,000 copies--up 38% from last week’s total of 246,000, according to industry sources. Equally significant: the three Brooks albums were the only albums in the Top 20 to show any sales increases last week.

The new chart will make Brooks, who won two American Music Awards on Monday, the first country artist ever to land three albums in the pop Top 20 in the same week.

Because Brooks still receives virtually no exposure on pop radio or rock-oriented MTV, industry insiders attribute the Nashville singer’s latest sales surge to the success of his Jan. 17 TV special--which ranked No. 9 for the week on network television and helped win NBC its highest-rated Friday night in two years.

Brooks’ leap back to the top of the charts comes on the heels of a similarly dramatic leap to No. 1 in last week’s Billboard chart by hard-rock group Nirvana following its Jan. 7 performance on NBC-TV’s “Saturday Night Live.”

Since the early ‘80s, record labels have relied almost exclusively on MTV to promote music on television. But observers now say that many companies are beginning to re-explore the marketing potential of network TV that was shown in the ‘50s and ‘60s when Elvis Presley and the Beatles went on network TV.

“An appearance these days on the right show at the right time is almost certain to guarantee an upswing in record sales,” said Mike Fine, chief executive officer at SoundScan, the New York research firm that provides the sales data used to compile Billboard’s pop chart.

“Recent sales statistics prove that record manufacturers can successfully market all kinds of music to a wide variety of audiences without the help of Top 40 radio.”

In recent years, however, pop concert specials have typically fared poorly on network television, observers said. The biggest problem with such shows is that they have repeatedly failed to attract the broad consumer demographics that advertisers seek to target: men and women between the age of 18 and 49.

But Brooks’ special broke the mold, according to Paul Schulman, whose New York firm analyzes and places about $175 million in advertising per year on network television. About 16 million households tuned in to watch the concert special--with 90% of the viewers between 18 and 49.

“Garth got ratings that astounded everybody in the television industry,” said Schulman, whose company represents clients such as ITT Corp. and Ralston Purina Co. “When advertisers and networks see numbers like he pulled in you can bet they pay attention.”

Schulman believes that Brooks’ success is likely to stimulate demand for other pop music specials on network television. He cites NBC’s “Hot Country Nights,” a show that pulls in about 5.5 million households every Sunday evening, as an example of a prime-time music program that has already met with “reasonable” success.

“I think there’s a darn good chance that Garth’s success could open the window for a variety of pop stars,” Schulman said. “The ratings his show got perked the interest of everyone in the industry.”

The success of “Hot Country Nights” convinced NBC to approach Liberty Records (the new name for Capitol Nashville which releases Brooks’ records) with the concept of doing a solo special.

Joe Mansfield, vice president of marketing and sales at Liberty, said Brooks jumped at the opportunity. “We saw the show as a one-hour commercial,” he said. “We figure about 38 million viewers tuned in to watch Garth. That’s 23 million more folks than have purchased his records . . . .”

Nirvana’s manager Danny Goldberg also credits the group’s “Saturday Night Live” appearance for introducing them to a new audience. “The sales response after the show (indicated) how network television reaches people who either don’t subscribe to cable or watch MTV,” he said. “It was amazing--particularly within the demographic over-25-years-of-age.”

In recent months, Top 40 pop stars such as Michael Jackson and Hammer have also sought to use network appearances to stimulate record sales. Jackson’s “Dangerous” album shot to No. 1 last fall following the Fox-TV premier of his “Black or White” video. Officials at Epic Records, which releases Jackson’s records, hope to repeat that success after Fox premiers Jackson’s “Remember the Time” short film Sunday along with MTV and BET at 8:30 p.m.

Officials at Capitol credit recent television performances by the Hammer on MTV, “Saturday Night Live” and appearances on an Atlanta Falcons’ football games for helping keep his “Too Legit to Quit” album in the Top 5 since its October release.

While many industry insiders speculate that the rapper’s appearance as host on the American Music Awards Monday may push “Legit” to No. 1 spot next week, Hammer’s manager Louis Burrell was reluctant to make any forecasts.

“Considering the state of the economy, it’s difficult to speculate exactly how the buying public might respond,” he said.